HD5870 Still Better Value Than HD7970 !

[Hash-IT]

I am more than willing to accept I have miscalculated something here which is one of my reasons for posting.

I was considering upgrading or adding to my GPU until I did a little window shopping. I was wondering if I have the following right ?

The following are just rough figures very quickly worked out.

My old HD5870

Cost me when new £120
850 MHz Engine Clock
1600 Stream Processing Units
WPA Cracking Speed 101.2 kps


HD7970

Cost now (cheapest I have seen today) £250
925MHz Engine Clock
2048 Stream Processors
WPA Cracking Speed about 140.0 kps (estimated)


So roughly speaking I could have bought 2 x HD 5870 cards for the same price as a new HD7970 now. That means "bang for buck" value of the HD5870 is massively better than the HD7970. This is compounded further when you consider the price you can get HD5870 cards for now, especially considering the secondhand market.

I have to say I am a little disappointed I would have thought 2 years on from the HD5870 I would have been seeing double the performance for the same price.


Bang for buck rating...


HD5870 £1.18 per 1kps

HD7970 £1.78 per 1kps

So I think the HD7970 would have to be priced at about £165 before it was comparable with the old HD5870. Am I right ?

[epixoip]

yeah, 5xxx series cards still provide the best bang for the buck.

the btc community has done a really good job tracking the economics of gpus over the years. check out the Mhash/s/$ column on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardwa..._.28ATI.29

[Hash-IT]

Thanks for that link epixoip, very interesting.

I got a little distracted reading about bitcoin, I didn't know what it was and to be honest I am still not sure !

Do you have any idea why this is happening to ATI cards ? Usually with computer parts (Moores law) things get much faster and cheaper. I understand hard drives have gone up because of the flooding of the main factories, but why are GPU cards going up per clock cycle ?

Have they reached a technical limit perhaps ?

[blandyuk]

Nice topic Hash-IT I find this very interesting. As u know, I bought 5 x Radeon 5870s and this was on the basis that they are the best "bang for your bucks" based on performance. The Radeon 5970 is not far off but when u consider I could be running 4 x Radeon 5970s instead of 5870s, I'd have even more performance from my GPU rig. I get ~ 163k/s WPA with 1 x 5970 stock clocks and reference cooler.

[epixoip]

well, moore's law is projected to taper off this year, and gpus seem to have tracked moore's law better than cpus.

[blandyuk]

Noticed 2 Radeon 5870s on ebay with Accelero Coolers. Search for: accelero 5870

Current bids are low but 3 days 2 go yet. Worth looking at if your thinking of buying a couple

UK seller and 100% feedback.

[Hash-IT]

Nice topic Hash-IT I find this very interesting. As u know, I bought 5 x Radeon 5870s and this was on the basis that they are the best "bang for your bucks" based on performance. The Radeon 5970 is not far off but when u consider I could be running 4 x Radeon 5970s instead of 5870s, I'd have even more performance from my GPU rig. I get ~ 163k/s WPA with 1 x 5970 stock clocks and reference cooler.

Ha, I thought you might like this !

Yes, 5970's do look good. I just cannot work out whats happening with GPU's and why people are buying the new stuff, which to be honest, just isn't worth it.

[Hash-IT]

well, moore's law is projected to taper off this year, and gpus seem to have tracked moore's law better than cpus.

Yes I have just been reading that on wikipedia.

I'm still not sure why the price is so high. Supposedly we are all in a recession and usually in a recession we get deflation. However anyone buying a new card now is actually paying a significant inflated price per clock cycle.

[KT819GM]

On bitcoin page very much variables, because of that numbers are inconsistent there. I think we could make our own table by taking few algos, exact version of *plus and *lite. To measure MB/CPU/HDD usage it would be enough just to take out RAM and GPU(s) and measure Wattage, after put back RAM and card (cards) measure again. Also ambient/gpu's temperature is important also. I could make a start in wiki if somebody thinks that it makes sense at all, but I have just 3 candidates - HD6950, HD5970, HD6990. HD7970 should be most wattage/performance efficient, so maybe it's worth money.

[Hash-IT]

I could make a start in wiki if somebody thinks that it makes sense at all, but I have just 3 candidates - HD6950, HD5970, HD6990. HD7970 should be most wattage/performance efficient, so maybe it's worth money.

Sounds good to me !

We could update it when prices change, a "bang for buck" column !

I haven't seen a good table with known WPA speeds.